Christmas Banquet

Christmas Banquet is an occasion for our students to dress up nice and gives the guys an opportunity to ask a young lady out.  The guys are very creative in finding ways to ask a girl out, usually incorporating the help of some friends to surprise her and add some special affects.  It is an event that our high school students look forward to and it ushers in the beginning of the Christmas season on our campus.  Christmas break follows, and for most of us that means spending cherished time with family and celebrating the wonder of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Banquet is another event that Sue and her group of student counsel kids organize.  Christmas decorations, setting up tables, finding a caterer, recruiting staff to help serve food and do dishes, listening to music auditions, and coming up with the evening's program are just some of the details that they needed to work out.

Sue and her student counsel kids!

 

 After many hours of planning - decorating begins!

 

 

Here is a link with pictures of our students looking their best: http://bfacademy.com/parents/galleries/events/banquets/christmas-banquet-2012/

 

Sue and Rachel, and the girls from their Wed. night small group:

 

 

Christmas Banquet was a very worthwhile event.  The rewards were watching our students having a great time and the joy of serving them together. 

 

 



Fall 2012

 

Fall of 2012 Activities 

 

Impacting kids to be followers of Jesus Christ involves taking interest in them, helping them to discover how they are uniquely created in the image of God, teaching them from God's word, and creating a community of friends and mentors that they can trust.

 

After Rome Trip Sue and I began settling into the normal routine of school.  We each picked up a group of sophomore students for Wednesday evening small groups.  We meet together to do fun things together, read from the Bible, pray for one another and eat snacks.  "Small Groups" are another means of encouraging our students to grow in their faith and to appreciate growing together in community.

Sue's girls:  Ashley, Karyn, Joyce, Bethany, Alyssa, Ira Lynne, and her co-leader Rachael.

 

 

Bob's small group met one night at a cabin in the woods for a dinner of hot chili on rice.  They then enjoyed some table games and some reading time in the cabin that we heated with the wood stove.  Guys gotta do this kind of stuff!  Here are: Daniel, Derrick, Andrew, Ben, David, Tyler, and Josh (Bob's co-leader)

 

Bob also helped teach some electives at the BFA Middle School.  He had these four boys for "Tool Time".  David, Bret, Caton, and David are hands on kinetic learners who loved being able to get out of the classroom and work with tools.  They were really helpful with all the fix it things Bob had to do this fall season at their school.

 

 

Sue's main responsibility this year is working with these students.  They are the student counsel representatives for their classes (freshmen - senior).  Together they organize and lead the fun activities of the high school.

Their names are:  Greer, Madison, Hanna, Evan F, Jacob, Eunji, Evan G, Grace, Brenton, Audrey, Luke, Sophie.  Their first big event was organizing "Fall Party".  Fall Party is always an occasion to get dressed up in costumes around a particular theme. 

 This year's Fall Party theme was "My Favorite Things"

 

Movies are some students favorite things!

Holidays are some of our favorite things.
There were different holiday stations set up serving food typical of that holiday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our students put a lot of effort into dressing up for this event.  Do you recognize "The Three Stooges"?

 

 

There was a contest for the best costumes.

 

What movie characters would you guess these dorm kids are dressed up as?

 

How about your favorite video game characters?

A look into our family life this fall season:

 

  The leaves on the vines that grow up the side of our apartment every year always turn beautiful colors in the fall.

 

November 7th is Marshall's birthday.   This year Sue organized a surprise party and prepared some of Marshall's favorite Italian food.

Senior Class "Rome Trip"

Rome Trip 2012

 

Sue and I had the privilege of helping out with the senior class trip again this year.  It is a very rewarding use of our 11 years of experience living in Italy.  Although it is called, "Rome Trip" we also visit the cities of Florence and Venice. 

 

The trip begins with an all night bus trip (in two buses) from Black Forest Academy to Florence, Italy.  We all try to get a good nights' sleep on the bus.  (That is not one of the highlights of the trip!)

 

Here are some of the other staff members who came along (looking great after the night on the bus!).

Dean of Faculty and Staff and his wife (an English teacher), art teacher, our HS nurse (and triathalon athelete), HS Chaplain, and our HS Spanish teacher:

 

Sue and our Italian friend Grazella.  Graziella was one of Sue's students when she taught an English conversation class during the years we served at Centro Maranatha (about 2 1/2 hours from Florence) .  Each year Graziella meets Sue in Florence on the day that we are there with the senior class!  They catch up on each others' lives over a good Italian capuccino.

 

 



Sue and I never tire of visiting Florence and it is particularly exciting to see the city through the eyes of our BFA students.

For the next five days we visit different sites in Rome.

 

 

Over the years I (Bob) have gotten to know two crippled Romanians who beg on the streets.  It is heart wrenching to see how they get around the city sitting on a skateboard.  Each year we come back I find them in the area of Piazza Narvona and the Trebbi Fountain and learn a little more about them.  This year I introduced Gabriella to Sue and some of our students.  After talking with her a bit and asking her some questions we gave her some money and prayed with her.  There is no work in Romania where this woman is from.  She and her husband come to Rome to beg and then send their money home to the grandparents who look after their two little girls.

The goal of Rome Trip is for our students to bond together as a class and to develop friendships that will result in encouraging one another throughout their last year of high school.

 

 

 

A couple of tourists !



 

 

Who can stuff the most Marshmallows in your mouth and say, "Chubby Bunny"? I (Bob) was not one of the runners-up!

 

 

Our Senior Class of 2013 - Dressed up to go out to a nice Italian Restaurant

 

 

Our trip is also educational.  It offers a great occasion for presenting a Christian worldview of history.

 



  Bob's Roman babe!

Each evening at the hotel there are always some crazy organized games.

 

Our last day we arise at 4:00am and head for Venice.
We take a boat to the island and turn the kids loose
to explore the sights on their own.

Sue always meets up with some of the students to help them bargain for souvenirs.  This year one of our students, who spent most of her life living in Bangladesh, got a better deal on umbrellas (on a rainy day) than Sue did!  The vendor, being Bengali, was so surprised to find this Caucasian girl in Italy speaking his language, that he sold her the umbrella for only 3 euros.  Sue got hers for 4!

 
Bob giving directions.  We turn the students loose to explore the city and find places to eat for the afternoon then meet up around 8:00pm for our last big event.

 

 

Our time in Venice ends
with a strings concert by
Interpreti Veneziani,
playing Vivaldi's "Four
Seasons" in a beautiful old church.

 

After the concert we take the boat back to the mainland and return to the buses for an all night drive back to Black Forest Academy.

T